The recording of the mandibular kinetics of a patient has enabled considerable progress in the design of dental appliances. Indeed, this recording makes it possible to animate three-dimensional models of dental arches and to visualise in particular the relationship between the teeth. This digital simulation makes it possible to dispense with the mechanical articulators used traditionally.
The document WO 2013/030511 describes a method for designing a dental apparatus which implements a recording of the mandibular kinetics of the patient.
This method firstly comprises either obtaining a volumetric image of the facial skeleton by a tomodensitometric technique, or determining reference planes of the facial skeleton by locating points of interest on the face of the patient.
Furthermore, three-dimensional models of the dental arches of the patient are obtained. Said models, positioned with respect to each other during their creation, are registered with the volumetric image of the facial skeleton or the reference planes determined beforehand.
The recording of the mandibular kinetics is implemented by equipping the patient with a marker attached to the forehead of the patient and markers attached directly to the teeth of the mandibular arch or to the mandible through a support, and by locating and recording the displacements of said markers by means of a camera during mandibular movements of the patient.
The mandibular kinetics thereby recorded may be applied to three-dimensional models of the arches to obtain a digital simulation of the relative displacement of the two arches.
A criterion of interest for the practitioner tasked with designing a dental apparatus is the configuration of interdental contacts.
It would thus be desirable to be able to exploit the mandibular kinetics recorded to obtain a mapping of the interdental contacts or distances between the teeth of the two arches.
However, the determination of these mappings requires a considerable computing time on account of the size of the digital models to handle.